‘Auxiliary Territorial Service searchlight operators, South Mimms, London, England, 1943’ by Lee Miller
It has been a mission of actor Kate Winslet for almost a decade to tell the story of the powerhouse that was Lee Miller.
The former Vogue model who became one of only four female photojournalists accredited by the USA to cover World War II, Miller is portrayed by Winslet in the film Lee, released in UK cinemas in September 2024.
Produced by Winslet, the biopic was given the go-ahead by Miller’s son, photographer Antony Penrose. It is based on his biography The Lives of Lee Miller, issued in paperback this month.
The book traces Miller's incredible evolution, from Vogue cover girl in 1920s New York to immersing herself in Surrealism and photography, then reinventing herself as a war correspondent, notably covering the liberation of Dachau and Paris.
Here, in an extract from The Many Lives of Lee Miller, Penrose describes his mother’s transformation into a photojournalist under the watch of British Vogue’s visionary wartime editor, Audrey Withers.
‘Fall of the Citadel, aerial bombardment, Saint-Malo, France, 1944’ by Lee Miller
D-Day came and went and six weeks later, at the end of July 1944, Lee was on board a Dakota heading for the US army field hospitals in Normandy. The assignment was to do a quiet picture story about nurses working in an evacuation hospital where the wounded from the frontline were being treated.
When Lee returned to England after five days, she had covered two tent hospitals and a frontline casualty clearing station. Along with about 35 rolls of film she filed nearly 10,000 words of the kind of reporting that established her domination of the major features of Vogue for the next year and a half.
"I grabbed a pocket full of flash bulbs and film, and clambered into a command car which was going to take us up to a field hospital about six miles nearer the front. A field hospital is the nearest completely equipped unit to the fighting lines. The desperately wounded who can’t travel the six more miles to the evacuation hospital arrive here. Every case is life or death, and ambulances come in with one or two men instead of waiting for a full load. They are transferred from the pre-ops tent, the X-ray tent or laboratories to the surgeon’s table with plasma bottles carried above – like a silent, dark convoy ship floating a balloon.
"In the bluey dusk, the artillery flashes were like summer heat-lightning, and the rumbling was an accompaniment to the sense of strain and urgency. The tempo was quicker than at the Evac – the doctors and nurses even more tired, and they knew that during the night they were going to run out of blood…
"The wounded were not ‘knights in shining armour’ but dirty, dishevelled, stricken figures – uncomprehending. They arrived from the frontline Battalion Aid Station in lightly laid-on field dressings, tourniquets, blood-soaked slings – some exhausted and lifeless.
"The doctor with the Raphael-like face turned to a man on a litter which had been placed on upended trunks. Plasma had already been attached to the man’s outstretched left arm – his face was shrunken and pallid under the dirt – by the time his pierced left elbow was in its sling, his opaque eyes were clearing and he was aware enough to grimace as his leg splint was bandaged into place."
‘Picasso and Lee Miller in the artist’s studio, Liberation of Paris, Rue des Grands-Augustins, Paris, France, 1944’ by Lee Miller
Something had unfettered Lee’s talent, and all her previous experiences were now channelled into one direction. Her former hypochondria vanished without trace, proving it to have been the product of her dissatisfaction. Gone was the soigné appearance and the refined taste in food and wine; now she wore crumpled battle dress and ate K-rations or worse. Playing cards, ‘chewing the fat’, taking pictures, doing crossword puzzles, writing letters, foreign travel, insatiable desire for excitement, social mutability, iron-hard resolution, and natural ebullience coalesced into one huge creative output. For Lee there was only one thought in her mind at this moment – getting back to the action.
The Vogue editors were astonished. They ran the full story and 14 pictures in two double-page spreads in the September issue, which also carried four of Lee’s civilian assignments, including some beautiful portraits of Margot Fonteyn. Lee’s contribution had given both British and American Vogue an involvement with the war and was dispelling somewhat the guilt and frustration among the staff that arose from their seemingly frivolous work. Audrey Withers [editor of British Vogue] described it as “the most exciting journalistic experience of my war. We were the last people one could conceive having this type of article, it seemed so incongruous in our pages of glossy fashion.”
‘Roland Penrose and Man Ray, Los Angeles, California, USA, 1946’ by Lee Miller
This is an edited extract from The Lives of Lee Miller by Antony Penrose, published in paperback by Thames and Hudson at £12.99. Lee, a film of Miller’s life starring Kate Winslet, is released in UK cinemas on 13 September 2024 and streams on Sky Cinema later this year.
All images by Lee Miller/Lee Miller Archives, England, 2021.
The RPS Journal is available exclusively to members. Join us to receive our award-winning magazine and read more inspiring features. Explore full member benefits here.